MOVIE REVIEW: Rockwell hits the target in 'Single Shot'

John Moon, the thick-skulled, quick-triggered hermit at the center of David Rosenthal’s “A Single Shot” doesn’t get to the movies much, given how he does exactly what he shouldn’t when he accidentally shoots and kills a young woodswoman camping out with a cache of cash.

It should be common knowledge by now that when you find a passel of cash just lying around in a remote area, a fella, no matter how tempted, should just leave it alone. Just ask the dudes who ignored that unwritten rule in “A Simple Plan” and “No Country for Old Men.” If you don’t want a nail gun pressed to your skull, you don’t dare pocket what ain’t yours. Comprende?

Apparently, John Moon, the thick-skulled, quick-triggered hermit at the center of David Rosenthal’s “A Single Shot” doesn’t get to the movies much, given how he does exactly what he shouldn’t when he accidentally shoots and kills a young woodswoman camping out with a cache of cash. He lugs the dough back to his disheveled trailer in the West Virginia woods and begins experiencing visions of grandeur. The money, he believes, will enable him to win back his wife and infant son, not to mention the family farm he lost to foreclosure. But the rightful owners have other much more nefarious ideas, none of which end with him staying alive.

Not very original, but when placed in the capable hands of “The Way Way Back’s” Sam Rockwell, the sad saga of John Moon is pretty darn close to riveting. Although I’m still not sure if that’s really Rockwell lurking unrecognizably under that thick beard and Elmer Fudd hunting cap. But the rich, three-dimensional performance is unmistakable Rockwell. Armed with little dialogue and even less character development, Rockwell effortlessly makes Rosenthal’s overt allegory seem less like a moral lesson and more like a darkly comical journey into a foolish man’s mindless self-destruction.

In many ways, you believe they should have titled the movie “All the Wrong Moves,” given how John does nothing right when it comes to his own preservation. He practically invites the two bad guys (Jason Isaacs and Joe Anderson), both armed with big guns and tiny brains, to his mountainside hideout. Even after they slay his dog and drop threatening notes on the premises, John still refuses to vamoose. That’s where an actor the caliber of Rockwell becomes so valuable, as he makes you dismiss your better judgment and fully believe in John’s stupidity. He also has a sneaky way of getting you to root for John’s quixotic quest even though the guy is pretty much an irredeemable loser.

It’s all Rockwell, too, because the script by Matthew F. Jones, based on his novel, is too scattershot and unfocused to work without an amazing lead performance to patch all the holes. The widest of those abysses being the one involving the women folk in John’s life. Initially, it’s his estranged wife, Jess (a pretty, but pretty empty Kelly Reilly from the “Sherlock Holmes” pictures), John seems most determined to rescue. But halfway through, his “gallantry” is inexplicably redirected toward sweet, adorable college girl, Abbie (Ophelia Lovibond), the daughter of the man (the always great Ted Levine) who bought the Moons’ dairy farm after it was seized by the bank.

Page 2 of 2 - So which is it? Jess or Abbie? The film can’t decide. And that’s a problem. So is the usually reliable Jeffrey Wright as John’s horny, hooch-swilling best bud who has the irritating habit of delivering long, almost indecipherable soliloquies drenched in exposition. Less of him and more of Rockwell would have been a wiser choice. In fact, Rosenthal could have axed all of Wright’s scenes without a one being missed. But when Wright is serving as one of the producers, along with Rockwell, it’s hard to cut the boss out of your picture. So Wright remains, much to the detriment of the movie.

Lucky for him, Rosenthal has Rockwell around to lend clarity to all the fog-shrouded machinations, especially in the final 20 minutes, when matters approach something akin to poetic irony. It’s then that you fully realize that it’s Rockwell – and Rockwell alone – who makes “A Single Shot” count.